Recap by: Chris Siggia, rajah.com
Please send all feedback to: jspodcast2020@gmail.com or @wrestlingfancs
SOMETHING TO WRESTLE WITH BRUCE PRICHARD 05/08/20: TITO SANTANA
Prichard talking about the plan for Tito Santana in the AWA: "In October 1981, Paul Boesch celebrated 50 years in wrestling. He had a big 3 day tournament and it was the who's who in the wrestling business...Nick Bockwinkle, who was the AWA World Champion and one of Verne's (Gagne) stalwart talents purchased a third of a third ownership in the Houston wrestling office. Nick wanted to, as legend has it, was going to retire very soon and wrap of his days of traveling and living in Minnesota and Nick wanted to retire in the south. Nick was made the offer to purchase some of the wrestling office and eventually take over for Paul Boesch as the promoter in Houston. He was also going to immediately start in '82 or '83 to book Houston and take some of that off Paul Boesch. They were looking for young talent and some different talent to come in and work on top. Nick recommended Tito Santana very highly. Again, as legend would have, and depending on who you would like to believe, that Tito was made the offer to come in and work the San Antonio booking office, which was Southwest Championship Wrestling, but he was also going to work Houston. At the same time, Bockwinkle was looking for someone to drop the AWA championship to and he considered Tito a fine candidate for that. Tito would then work a lot of the southwest area and he would still obviously work Verne's area as well. After we do this tournament, and the tournament was designed to get Tito Santana over, brand new, Tito's debut. In the middle of the thing, Tito beats Bockwinkle in the middle of the tournament. Now Tito has a win over the AWA world champion. Tito goes on and wins the 3 day tournament, gets the big trophy, $50,000 and so forth. After we did that, and we bring Tito in for the matches with Bockwinkle for the title, there is one match where Tito got his blade out way too soon and cut Bockwinkle on his stomach, cut him on his legs on his arms and the people are looking like why is Bockwinkle's leg bleeding like a stuff pig. Then Tito got an offer to go back to New York. Tito chose to go back to New York. We had done all this work to get Tito over and make him the guy and be our top babyface and he moved on."
UNIVERSITY OF DUTCH 05/08/20: JAKE HAGER
Jake Hagger talking about being neighbors with Danny Hodge: "Growing up, I lived 2 blocks away from the school. Danny lived 1 block away from the school, so he was my neighbor. One of his grandsons graduated with me from High School. His name was Patrick Hodge, who is a good friend of mine to this day. Growing up, younger, I knew of the legend, but I didn't know Danny Hodge was living a block away from me. This was when I was 7 or 8. I knew of the name but didn't understand how close he was to me.
Hager explaining how he got into AEW: "Chris Jericho really gave me the call, gave me the ok with everybody there and got me the job with AEW. He was training at Dave Bautista's gym; the same one I train at in Tampa. My head coach was training him at the time and we would bump into each other all the time. He saw the progression between the fights (Hagger's Bellator fights) and must have liked it and liked what he was seeing. He said this is my guy, I want him."
